Pietersen pays the price... for England's failure!

Pietersen pays the price... for England's failure!

'To make Kevin Pietersen the scapegoat is an easy way out for the ECB. It is about not accepting collective failure and brushing the reality under the carpet. It is also about taking your best player for granted.'

'It is not that the ECB bosses do not recognise Pietersen's rare talent,' says Bikash Mohapatra. 'It is just that they cannot accept that such genius is accompanied by a temperament that needs to be dealt with delicately.'

'On a day when common sense got thrown out of the window...'

Former England captain Michael Vaughan's tweet on Tuesday aptly summed up the mood in the cricketing world.

A few hours earlier, Kevin Pietersen, England's best batsman and a proven matchwinner, was sacked from the English team for the upcoming T20 World Cup, probably ending his international career.

Thereafter, Twitter went into overdrive (#KPSacked).

'Our greatest ever batsman, still just 33, made scapegoat for an Ashes debacle in which HE was top run-scorer??? Absolute disgrace,' tweeted CNN's Piers Morgan, proceeding to label the England and Wales Cricket Board 'gutless assassins' and 'spineless losers'.

Just days after coach Andy Flower left, the ECB had dumped KP on the pretext of building a team for the future.

It was one more hurtful and unpleasant encounter involving the ECB and KP.

Ever since the South Africa-born Kevin Pietersen made his Test debut in the 2005 Ashes series, he has as often been in the news for off-the-field incidents as much he has been for his swashbuckling batting.

Please click Next to read more...

Image: Kevin Pietersen received support on Twitter after being sacked.Photographs: Getty Images

Pietersen pays the price... for England's failure!

From resigning as England captain in 2009 -- after only five months in charge -- following a breakdown in his relationship with then coach Peter Moores to being dropped during the Test series against South Africa in 2012 for sending 'provocative' text messages about his then skipper Andrew Strauss to the South Africans, to Andy Flower apparently issuing the ECB an ultimatum to choose (between him and KP) following differences during the Ashes series Down Under, Pietersen has often been at the eye of the English storm.

His relationship with the cricket administrators of his adopted country was topsy-turvy. While the ECB did not hesitate in often booking KP for his offences, it was clueless about how to handle the match-winner, something a player of his awesome talent deserved.

Please click Next to read more...

Image: Kevin Pietersen, left, with England Captain Alastair Cook, with whom he is said not to have gotten along.Photographs: Getty Images

Pietersen pays the price... for England's failure!

Temperamental he is, but there is no questioning Pietersen's immense talent or many achievements.

A magnificent 158 at The Oval in his debut series not only helped draw the match and consequently ensure England's first Ashes triumph in 18 years, it set the tone for an illustrious career (104 Tests) that yielded 8,181 runs and 23 centuries, most of them landmark knocks like these:

His unbeaten 202 against India at Lord's in 2011 -- in what was the 2,000th Test overall and the 100th between the two countries -- set the tone for a 4-0 whitewash.

His belligerent 151 at the P Sara Oval in April 2012 earned England a memorable win on Sri Lankan soil.

The same year, his aggressive 186 against India in not-so-favourable conditions at the Wankhede stadium set the tone for a memorable series triumph, England's first on Indian soil in 27 years.

Please click Next to read more...

Image: Kevin Pietersen set up many victories for England.Photographs: Getty Images